


Bound To This Life

by Mademoiselle



Series: A Duty (to the Living and the Dead) [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:57:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3100808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mademoiselle/pseuds/Mademoiselle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Beth's death, Rick embraces the fact that there’s no room for dreams or hope in life anymore.  None of them will have a happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bound To This Life

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.”

\-- Abraham Lincoln                

 

 

 

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ 

 

 

 

For an instant he believes that good fortune is back on their side. That maybe they will all reunite. That someday they will all find a life like they had at the prison again. Maybe it’ll even be better. He thinks it’s fair, because they’re good people and they’re strong, but they’ve already lost too much. He thinks the universe understands this and is giving them another chance.

 

He thinks he can still save what is left of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next instant, Beth’s blood lashes across him. He wipes at his face quickly and futilely. It burns him, and then turns cold, freezing him in place. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t look down. He can’t breathe.

 

The smell of iron and the sound of another gunshot bring him back to the room. He’s drawn his gun, but he has no idea what he’s doing.

 

He finally glances down, the tears in his eyes blur the blood pooling around her. His own failures blurred. Beth looks so young and beautiful. She could be sleeping. She could be with her father now, with her family.

 

He desperately wants to hold onto that thought for them, for Beth and Hershel.

 

It’s that thought that is so foreign to him that spurs him to ask these people, the ones who kept Beth away from them – the ones who killed her – to join them. He’s relieved when they don’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As he watches Maggie and Daryl sob over Beth’s body, he embraces the fact that _this_ is life. There’s no room for dreams or hope in life anymore. None of them will have a happy ending. His heart doesn’t even break at the thought when Carl comes to stand next to him. If he had one hope left it would be that his children don’t know what they just lost.

**Author's Note:**

> I felt I left Rick hanging at the end of "Duty," so I wrote this. It's technically stand alone, but it works as part of the Rick's "Duty" series.


End file.
